Guild Instance Runs vs. Pugs #WoW
stargrace 
In true nomadic gamer style I have been playing a handful of games but the majority of my friends seem to have divided themselves between EverQuest 2, and World of Warcraft. Of course being – well, me, I decided that we needed a guild in WoW so I created Dragons Flight on the horde side of Argent Dawn – and then I promptly also made Dragon Flight on the alliance side. We’re a tiny but friendly guild and so far most of the people who have joined are gamers that I’ve been playing with a long time now. Last night the majority of us were level 15 or a few levels higher, so we set out to do our first instances as a guild.That’s on the alliance side at least. On the horde side there is an 85 (hugs!) as well as my 82 priest, and another 81 priest as well as a handful of alts. We’re playing alliance for a change and because not everyone owns the Cataclysm expansion yet.
As a guild we’re pretty lucky. I play a healer and we have a paladin (or two) who are able to tank. That means instant queues right there. Two other members play a hunter and a rogue, so there’s some DPS. My healer was level 21 while everyone was 15 so I decided to try an instance or two on my warlock just so that the others could gain some levels. Well. In true PUG form we had incredibly bad luck with our healers.
The first one left after the first named. Why? No idea. They never said anything to group. The second one joined our instance right as we were fighting a named, and then never moved and promptly went offline. I pulled out my warlock tank pet, and the entire group wiped except me. One of my prouder moments, to be sure. Our third healer was a druid and I couldn’t understand why they seemed to be having an incredibly hard time healing after we died three or four times. Then I checked their playerscore. See, you can dislike this addon all you want but it DOES have its uses. Selecting the player and typing /gs provided me with information about their character and upon further inspection I found out that they were a BALANCE druid which means caster dps. NOT restoration. Now, at level 15 as a balance druid you’re missing one of your biggest heals. Restoration druids gain the ability to turn one of their heal over times into a direct heal. The skill has a fairly quick recast timer and even at 21 it’s my second largest heal. Since the majority of the group was not sporting heirloom even this one little thing was causing huge issues for us.
I asked the druid if he knew that he was balance spec’d even though he had queued up as a healer and he replied that he didn’t mean to join as a healer. O.. K.
Anyhow, it was our first dungeon and it was Deadmines and we were almost done after numerous wipes so we just kept trucking. After the zone was completed I relogged to my healer and we did Ragefire without any issues. I like the changes to Deadmines, particularly the boss fights, and especially the one that smashes the target up against a wall and then sticks to the heads of random players. The final fight with Cookie is also awesome where you have to click on healthy food and avoid the rotten stuff.
When the dust had settled everyone had obtained a few new upgrades and a few levels. My paladin is sitting at 24 and I’m looking forward to doing some more guild tanking of my own. We’re in the midst of raising cash for a guild bank and a few tabs since we’re completely new to not only the alliance faction but the server itself. In the mean time, hopefully everyone is having as much fun as I am.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.